The decision to sell KPLU-FM public radio to the University of Washington is “fundamentally misguided,” and backed by claims that are “misleading or fundamentally incorrect,” the station’s community advisory council said Monday in a tough letter to Pacific Lutheran University President Thomas Krise and the university’s regents.

“We urge you to withdraw from further negotiations with the University of Washington and to consider other options,” said the council, a requirement of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Bylaws require it to “represent the interests, needs and concerns of the station’s listening public.”

A logo that will soon disappear?

The council was blindsided when the sale was announced earlier this month. Its letter lambastes Pacific Lutheran University for not consulting or advising on the $8 million sale. The sale would terminate KPLU’s news department and fundamentally alter its popular, locally hosted jazz and blues programs.

“These failures reveal a startling disconnection between the university and the community served by KPLU, and an unfortunate disregard for all those whose support has sustained the station for 49 years,” the council argued.

The news lately for Tacoma-based Pacific Lutheran University, normally out of the news, has not been positive.

The station sale was assailed at a Seattle public meeting last week. seattlepi.com disclosed that an effusive statement by Krise, praising KPLU’s contributions to the University, was deleted from the 2014 KPLU Annual Report as the sale approached. The public has learned of a recent downgrading of the university’s bond rating. The News Tribune in Tacoma, PLU’s hometown daily, has editorialized against the pending sale.

The sale is slated to be put in final form by Dec.19, and then sent to the Federal Communications Commission for an approval process expected to last four to six months. But the community advisory council wants Pacific Lutheran to hold off, and consider other alternatives. Its letter rests with a moral/ethical argument, since regents at the privately held school are not legally obligated to consider alternative bids.

“A decision to sell KPLU to the University of Washington would cause the permanent loss of a cherished institution,” the council wrote. “If the university truly wishes to sell KPLU, we urge it to consider the possibility of community ownership or some other means to preserve the station’s status as an independent public radio affiliate.

“Because no financial urgency is driving the university to sell, we ask that any further action on the proposed sale be deferred for a period sufficient to allow for such alternatives to be explored and adequately considered.”

The community advisory council delivered a nail-driving critique of any argument, specific or implied, that KPLU is a burden on the university.

“We also feel compelled to register our concern that certain assertions made and information offered by the university to justify its decision to sell KPLU are misleading or flatly incorrect,” said the letter. The council made several points:

KPLU is thriving. “The station’s weekly combined terrestrial (on-air) and on-line audience now exceeds 430,000, up from 360,000 in 2012,” said the letter. “KPLU boasts the 12th largest public radio audience in the country. Its success in building its listenership belies any assertion that the station’s programming is not valued or is effectively ‘redundant’.”

KPLU is not a financial drain on the university. Individual donors fund more than half of KPLU’s $7 million operating budget, with 35 percent underwritten by local businesses. The station gets money from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, grants and foundations.

Pacific Lutheran University contributes only $30,000 a year to the station, less than one half of one percent of the station’s annual operating budget. “In contrast,” the cCouncil wrote, “the other 26 private colleges and universities that hold public radio station licenses give an average of $290,000 in cash support to their licensees, representing over 17 percent of these stations’ total cash support.”

KPLU listeners financed construction of the Martin J. Neeb Center at the PLU campus, which the university wants for other uses. “Six million dollars was raised in response to a capital campaign run by KPLU, and an additional $2.5 million was funded through KPLU’s sale of a broadcast tower it owned and a withdrawal from KPLU’s cash reserves.”

“The university’s assertion that it now cannot afford to allow KPLU to continue using a facility whose construction KPLU listeners and supporters funded is breathtakingly out of touch.”

The letter was written by Stephen Tan, chair of the community advisory council. The council, at its meeting last week, was unanimous in condemning the sale, as were citizens who lined up to give statements.